Nolens Volens
by Deathly Noted
Summary: Not even death can sever chains of fate. Whether willing or unwilling, Light and L will meet again, postmortem. LightxL.
1. Heights

**no·lens vo·lens**

adv. Whether willing or unwilling.

* * *

"D… damn it…" 

**All humans will, without exception, eventually die.**

The warehouse distorted around him as death shrouded his eyes with its unblinking glaze, the dusty linearity of the ceiling tiles blurring into clouds of gray, and then a beacon of pure white light severed the sky, pouring over him, pulling at him painfully until he was forced to blink.

**After they die, the place they go is…**

In that split second of dark departure, everything changed. His eyelids came together like the blades of Apropos' shears and severed his last remaining connection to the living world, and he could feel an alarming aberration in his body, as if the blood in his veins had suddenly reversed direction or dropped a dozen degrees in temperature. Maybe it was just the shock of suddenly hearing breath after gasping breath, his pulse pounding in his ears, when for a few terrible moments it had seemed that it would be silent forever…**nothingness**…

Laughter burst through Light's lips at the thought, an inharmonic weaving of his doubts and indignation and so many deadly shards of anger, craving for reciprocal blood and humiliation upon the wretches who had destroyed him, upon every God of Death and deity who had failed him… yet even as the tittering fit began, it was over, the ghost of his voice echoing oddly through the room. While his throat had constricted tight with realization, his eyes opened wider still, disbelieving of his own suspicions; but when he raised his shaking wrists to observe them against the bright backlight, the truth, however mystifying, could not be denied. The navy fabric of his business suit had been replaced by the beige of his high school days; the angles of his hands were smoother, younger; and suddenly these surroundings didn't seem so mundane and ignorable, because he recognized this place. The image of his hands was superimposed with the very window through which he had witnessed the Death Note's descent to earth, and surely all he had to do was reach out and grab it, and this time he would do it right, this time—

Light scrambled to his feet entirely inelegantly, knocking aside desks and chairs and papers as he sprinted from the room, but appearances hardly mattered when no one was there to see. The hallways were empty, as if a path were being cleared for him, and by the time he arrived in the entryway, a room steeped brilliantly in sunlight, God, he _knew_. On the other side of this door waited his divine right. Just one twist of the doorknob, the round cold shape every bit like an apple in his palm, and—

And it was locked.

Light screamed, slamming his palms against the door full force. For a moment, his fingers flexed and twitched in place, as if grasping for something, and then blunt nails dragged down the wood with a horrible whining pleading sound that he couldn't bring himself to make aloud — but that momentary collapse was all he allowed himself before standing straight again. There were other ways; there were always other ways, and yet every door, every window he checked was equally unyielding. Light found himself traveling up through the tiers in desperate, dizzying spirals, breath coming in gasps, like a drowned out rat, until…

An exit he had forgotten about, or perhaps blocked out, stood before him. It led to the rooftop, where some students liked to go to skip classes or have lunch together, and where on one beautiful autumn day, Light kissed Yuri… but that wasn't the time or place he was remembering as he stared at the barrier before him. He was remembering a day when he was nineteen floors closer to the sky and yet by the side of the only person capable of chaining him to the ground and keeping him from soaring in those heights, and a cleansing rain had fallen over the world, though cold.

Forcefully pushing the memories away with his hands pressed against gray paint, the optimist in Light was unsurprised when the door gave way, and he stepped out onto the school roof where the blue sky stretched endlessly clear and sun drops flecked his skin. He crossed to the far railing and leaned over unhesitatingly, and though he couldn't see the Death Note from here, there was a patch of bushes below that would cushion his fall. If he were jumping prepared to land on his feet, from only four stories up, there was no way anything could go wrong.

Satisfied with his reasoning, Light hopped over the chain link fence and landed on the ledge on the other side, holding onto the rail behind him for support and leaning forward, preparing to jump. Maybe this would even be fun, like flying. He had always wanted wings…

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

The unfamiliar voice startled Light so much that his body jolted and his foot slipped, but his fingers' reflexive grip saved him from an unprepared fall, pulling him back toward the railing and onto the safety of solid ground.

Heart pounding, pumping adrenaline through his veins, Light said acidly, "Thanks for the warning; it was so very helpful. Now, if you would kindly mind your own fucking business…"

"You've changed, Light… or perhaps you are showing your true face for the first time?"

"No," he replied, utterly monotone.

"You deny it?"

"No, no, _no_…" There was a rising pitch of panic in the chorus, and as it reached its peak, Light turned to meet L's eyes as if being sucked into a black hole. The distance drawn between them like a battleground didn't make those pitch-dark pupils any less deep, any less powerful; those twin bastilles that bound him in their dank dungeon cell where he wasn't allowed to look at the sky, let alone take flight. In that midnight realm, there was only L; but midnight was also the hour when the enchantment broke, and Light tore his eyes away as if scorched, even though L was appraising him with Aurora Borealis chill. With a shaky exhalation, he let go of the bars to his prison and fell.

It was only natural that L would latch onto him like a parasite, spindle fingers pricking painfully into his skin even through layers of thick, stiff fabric as L struggled to keep him aloft, and Light's feet fought against the side of the building, though he wasn't quite sure if he was trying to push himself away or regain his footing.

"I _told_ you… not to do that… you stubborn fool," L gasped, and with a decisive heave, they were both thrown back onto the roof. A splitting crack sounded as L landed on the cement, but Light didn't bother to check if he was okay, because from his supine position on L's chest, the man's every wheezing breath ghosted through his hair and onto the nape of his neck, where his respiration settled like dust. L was warm, solid, _real_.

Rolling off onto his hands and knees, Light eyed L critically from above, like a science lab specimen, until wide unblinking eyes fixed on the sky returned his gaze. Immediately, Light flinched away, moving back the five feet of slack their eidolon chain would allow.

"There is no need for concern. I cannot die twice." L's lack of bitterness or sorrow or anger, the utter offhandedness of the comment, somehow accentuated that it was a jab about his murder.

"Nor can I. You had no reason to stop me," Light declared, and the double-entendre poured steel over L's eyes, already cold. The crouched position he assumed as he spoke, rather than the tight defensive ball Light was used to, seemed almost predatory.

"Ah… that is an entirely different matter. If one leaves this building, one's soul is obliterated."

Light wanted to say, 'If that's the case, then why did you save me?' but settled for a skeptical, "How would you know, anyway? You're still here."

"I don't know for certain, however…" L pinned him with a meaningful look. "Can't you feel it? This place… we are not meant to part with it. We are bound to it."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." His tone was brusque and self-assured, but in truth, L's claims had started an itch beneath his skin. "I don't feel any attachment to this place at all. My desire to leave is overwhelming, especially now that you're here."

"_Interesting._" The condescension rolled off L's tongue as his eyes dilated to reveal more of that bleak black-and-white expanse. "Consider this, Light… what if that desire was programmed into you by a higher power, such that you would exterminate yourself? You are a mass murderer, after all."

"I am a god," he counterstroked, a crisp verbal backhand across the face, and a physical fight seemed imminent as spines straightened and muscles tensed, but when Light's jaw clenched, the looking glass shattered and L's lips dropped open to speak.

"You may think yourself a god, Light Yagami, but you are not invincible. You may be dead, but you do not have angel wings. If you wish to plunge twenty-three stories onto pavement, by all means…"

"I… what?"

"I said, 'You may think—'"

"Shut up." Glances to his left and right confirmed his location: the school roof. "This building only has four stories."

The man across from him cocked his head to one side, brows furrowing, but before thumb could meet flesh and drag it down it that grotesque way, Light snapped, "Don't give me that look." The approaching hand dropped back onto L's knee without protest and his head righted itself, but his manual attempt to return his eyes to their normal proportions resulted in an even stranger look.

"Just where do you think we are?"

"My high school. Where do _you_ think we are?"

"Headquarters."

"…"

"…"

It was Light who broke their silent standoff with a frustrated sigh.

"I'm not going to be manipulated by you. You're trying to make me feel bad about having you killed, right? Even though you would have done the same to me…"

Peering out through the web of his fingers as he attempted to massage away an oncoming migraine, Light waited for a reaction that never came. Blank slate eyes turned skyward, as if ignoring Light's very existence, and though he recognized this as L thinking deeply, his ego nevertheless allowed him to feel insulted by the action. The line between deception and self-deception had blurred long ago as each successive stroke made on the lines of the Death Note grew darker and smoother.

L murmured at length, "Chains," the focus in his lens-like eyes suddenly returning as he lifted a languid wrist, shook it, and spoke louder, firmer, "Even though we were sent to different places after death, our worlds overlap at the roof. It is our chain of fate."

The bilious taste in Light's mouth became genuine nausea when he stood up and saw L lurch forward slightly, as if the chain had been pulled taut between them and disturbed his balance. The actual meaning behind the motion became clear, however, when L settled easily back into place and watched with a curious stare as he began to pace: it had been preparation to prevent another "suicide attempt." Light laughed hollowly. Everything he thought to be fact was crashing down around him in this topsy-turvy world where the detective who had wanted nothing more in life than to inject him with pancuronium bromide was suddenly concerned for his safety; and his voice, detached shattered glass, it said:

"You're wrong. Your theory is all wrong. I was told by a very reputable source on matters of life and death, a _God_ of Death, that we all go to the same place when we die. Death is equal, and therefore… therefore…"

Light's lips pursed in an effort to hold back the impending explosion, but when L prompted, "Therefore?" it was all over. He kicked the nearest object in sight, which unfortunately wasn't L's face, and the railing clanged like a gong announcing his tirade.Curses and punts gushed forth, his tantrum spurred on all the more by the knowledge that Ryuk would be untouchable even if he were present, until finally silence and stillness clotted over.

"Are you quite finished?" L asked amusedly. Unfazed by the glare Light sent his way, he advanced, "Perhaps we do all go to the same place when we die, but we are blind to everyone but the one who really matters. Perhaps death is 'equal' because we find our equal there."

"_Enough_, L," he hissed, offering his back to the other man as he latched onto the top rung of the fence with both hands.

Warningly, "Light—"

"For Christ's sake, I'm not jumping!" Light snapped. "Although I would be wise to, with you nipping at my heels. Just… let me think."

With a jagged sigh that bordered on a growl, Light's arms slid down to form a cross atop the bar and his forehead slumped onto the cool relief of the back of his hand, pushing away the bangs that obscured his vision only after he had closed his eyes. The sky vanished, the rooftop vanished, L vanished, and though Light had said he was going to think, in fact, he was only concentrating on his breathing: on expelling the rottenness with each exhalation — first the anger, now the self-deprecation — and inhaling pure air in turn.

That elusive state of paradisiacal unawareness had almost been achieved when suddenly he sensed a presence nearby and his body automatically tensed with paranoia, because certainly L was underhanded enough to attack him from behind or try to push him over the railing or—

The reality of the situation was infinitely worse. Warm arms grazed his sides and draped loosely around his waist, and it had even gotten to the point where Light felt a weight nuzzling in between his shoulder blades before the frozen state of shock trapping him in place was thawed by a furious anger. He threw back an elbow with all of his strength and felt it dig into the underside of L's ribcage in a way that must have been incredibly painful, yet L didn't make a sound, as if he had been expecting it. If anything, the hold on Light's waist was tightening, and the action pressed a dangerous sonance stirring in the pit of his stomach up through his throat.

The next moment, L was arched back over the railing in an inversion of his usual slouch, but he refused to struggle even as Light inched him further and further over the edge, simply staring ahead with that infuriatingly impassive expression on his face.

"I loathe you," Light said, a cadence of soft, sharp, soft, and he then released his victim with the air of one disposing of trash. It was with morbid satisfaction that he watched L fall and land right at his feet, sprawled ungainly on hands and knees, as if bowing before his God and imploring forgiveness. Light made a point of grinding down on a spiderlike hand, crushing the pest underfoot, as he turned to walk away.

"Light-kun?"

Something had been conveyed in that single word, some deep and terrible stain of emotion, but Light didn't care to identify it. He just kept walking without a backward glance. When he reached the doorway and stepped inside, the voice came again, softer this time:

"I'll be here on the roof, if you ever want to see me."

Light slammed the door behind him.

* * *

**A/N:** If you enjoyed this, you might be interested in my other serial fanfic about Light and L's afterlife, Ad Hominem; or if you've already read Ad Hominem, what's your verdict on these two pieces as a couplet? My hope is that the worlds and interactions therein didn't feel repetitive just because they were both postmortem, but that they still had a certain similarity, a contrast between them — like two sides of the same coin. That was the feel I was going for, and that's why I decided to give them both Latin names and post them on consecutive days. So, though they're not related plot-wise, it might be interesting to read both. Thank you for your time. 


	2. Underworld

**no·lens vo·lens**

adv. Whether willing or unwilling.

* * *

A revolution of three hundred and sixty degrees revealed only trees.

The door to the rooftop was gone.

Light, unsure whether to feel trapped or freed, settled for some sort of all-consuming glee when the deeper meaning for his being here came to him like photosynthesis.

This spotty sunlight, this mist shimmering on his skin… this was the forest in which, once upon a lifetime, he had buried the Death Note.

His smile was so wide and bright, he created shadows around the corners of his mouth.

* * *

L was frowning so deeply that his tongue felt like it was underground.

Hours, perhaps, had passed since Light left the rooftop, yet he hadn't moved from the spot where Light cast him aside. His limbs were numb, but not nearly as numb as his brain and his tongue, reliving, "Light-kun?"

For a genius, he was unquestionably _dumb_.

L squeezed his head between his knees to a painful degree, even knowing that blocking Light out of his thoughts wouldn't be as simple as shielding himself from the sunlight above. At this point, it was probably impossible.

What was once muted fascination, in death, became obsession; hate became the desire to maim Light-Kira, to claim him; physical chains became the belief in fate.

Maybe he was deranged, but in that case, Light-Kira was more than his messed up match.

Toes curling with impatience, L muttered, "Ninety-five percent chance of failure… stalemate, four percent… success, one percent."

L crossed the rooftop and opened the door.

* * *

"Did you miss me, L?" Light accosted.

The forest was overtaken with silence, a breathless agitato at last interrupted by the smacking sound of the sole of his shoe against hollowed out wood and equally hollow laughter.

"Because I didn't miss you," he sneered, and the tree stump he was talking to didn't argue. A few paces to the east, he could see the tree representing Light Yagami in all his glory, the X of this treasure map terrain, and just one foot beneath the earth's surface lay Heaven.

Dropping to his knees as though praying, fervently, faithfully, Light began digging.

* * *

L's nails dug into his palms and drew blood in an attempt to prove that the sight before him wasn't an illusion, perhaps futilely, but he would always cling to his logistics and tricks. Licking the blood from his own wounds, his eyes softened at the sharp taste, saddened, and he buried his hands in his pockets where they wouldn't be tempted to touch anything, that ironic taste still clinging to his tongue when he murmured, "Light…"

* * *

The Death Note wasn't where it was supposed to be, but Light excavated until he reached the roots of the tree, until the hole expanded to the dimensions of a grave, until the forest became a maze of trenches and tunnels.

At some point, maybe, just maybe, his intentions changed. Maybe he was trying to craft himself a rabbit hole out of that world. Maybe, by upturning more and more soil, he was trying to fill the holes that had already formed.

_L would know_, he thought to himself, a mantra, but the only words that left his mouth were half-developed curses degraded into desperate whimpers. His hands wouldn't stop, no matter what he thought; his hands just wouldn't _stop_.

"Light…"

His chin tipped upward, drawn to the voice addressing him, but his eyes wouldn't focus through the built up brine of crying. Blinking once, twice, finally on the third time, L stood before him; even more bewilderingly, his backdrop was composed of decadent mirrors and chandeliers and wall sculpture in stucco, the hotel suite where their chains were put into place. Did L see… did L know…?

Light glanced back at his hands and was surprised to find a wreckage of flesh, his fingernails cracked and bleeding and even now scraping feebly at the carpet.

"What are you doing?" With his voice, with his eyes, L wasn't chiding or accusing Light; it was a question in its purest form: one that asked for an answer.

"I…" His hands stilled and became the support he needed to push himself off the ground. "I want to show you something." That was his answer, and L accepted it with an unblinking eternity of expectancy, as if to say…

* * *

"This is the day I died."

"Is that so?" was L's rather insipid reply, sapped of strength by imbedded wariness and unaccustomed puzzlement as he watched Light spin about passionlessly, an off-course music box ballerina who bled from his hands rather than his feet and gestured at things L couldn't see. Compared to the here and now, to the stinging warmth and subsequent chill of Light accidentally swiping him across the cheek, their whereabouts were meaningless. An apology wasn't forthcoming, but L didn't wipe away the streak of blood Light had left behind, either. He was unsure if the blood was Light's or his own or both, and for once in his life, he didn't want to know; he wanted the world to blur and break down between them. He _wanted._

"You don't believe me, L? You don't trust me?"

"No."

The dance ended on that awkward note.

"What? What am I supposed to be seeing?" If L were speaking to a child, his tone of slow condescension, of almost tenderness, would have made more sense. As it was…

Love and hate, destruction and creation, black and… Light was reaching out to him. It took all of L's mental strength not to flinch. Though the pain of having his wounded hands latched onto was ignorable — the gentlest form of torture — the connotations of this situation ravished his mind. Their hands entwined in a bloody nest over Light's heart, L's eyes itching with tautness and dryness, and Light, even his voice pulsated: "Can you feel it now?"

"One hundred fifteen beats per minute," L answered automatically, but shortly thereafter a spike in Light's heart rate negated his statement, tangible anger speaking beats into his palms, squeezing them harder and harder until he felt compelled to vocalize his discomfort, "That hurts."

Surprisingly, Light listened, loosening his grip and casting those beautiful liar eyes downward. Shadows dribbled over Light's face like a mantilla of black lace, face paint shame; surely this person felt no shame.

"When I died, I… was so afraid…" Not a mantilla, then, but the lattice of a confessional.

Silence: the closest thing to absolution L could give for Light's sins.

And this, this was the closest Light had ever come to contingency, his forehead colliding clumsily with L's shoulder, a weighted whisper, "_I wish you had been there._"

What did that even mean? L couldn't see anything. His eyes had closed as nonconsensually as the day he died, enhancing the scent of Light's humanity, the sound of shallow breaths like the artificial ocean within a seashell; everything spiraling out of control. "Take me there. Show me."

Six heartbeats before Light spoke. "There's only one door, an entrance as well as an exit. The first things I notice when I walk inside the warehouse are the chains hanging from the ceiling and the smell of rust. It reminds me of you, even before I see Near crouching on the ground, wearing your mask. You know what I think, L?"

L shook his head minimally, though they were close enough now that his nose traced Light's neck.

"I think to myself, Near is far inferior to L. He has no right to be wearing L's mask. Near is inferior to L… I think that to myself, on and on and on…" Even as Light wove his story, he laughed, a clawlike laugh, so far from the rich vibrato L was familiar with. What Light said was dubious at best, yet L was absorbed, to the point where he jolted when Light stopped snickering abruptly, stating dully, "And then he pins me. No one believes me, no one supports me, and no one saves me, not even the Shinigami who gave me the notebook. My name is written. I am fated to die. I'm so afraid… but then I see your face, and I know you're waiting for me. Peacefully, my heart stops beating."

Opening his eyes only after Light had withdrawn, his hands deprived of the pulse-proof of Light's existence, L realized that they were no longer underground; they were…

"And then I find you again, here, on the rooftop — as many times as I need to," Light concluded, all but demanding that something significant be returned to him, but…

L couldn't do it. His mind lost the battle with his facial muscles and he smiled, all the more so when Light punched him, rattling his brain like always. He retaliated with a spinning kick, immediately regretting it when Light was sent crashing into the chain link fence behind him. It caught his body like a noisy net, but rather than bouncing back to fight as L would have expected of him, Light slid defeated to the cement and covered his face with his blood-stained hands.

L blinked. He stared at the sun for a full minute. He blinked again, but the sun's afterimage remained, staining unchanging Light. At last, as confused as ever, he questioned, "What is wrong?"

The vague back-and-forth motion Light made with his head answered naught.

"Nothing is wrong?"

"No." Again, it was unclear what Light meant.

"You don't want to talk about it?"

"_Shut up and die._"

…That was clear enough. Nonetheless, L said, "I'm already dead," the first frivolous words that came to mind, not to annoy Light but because he had come to dislike silence; or conversely, because he had come to…

"…hate you…" whispered Light, so breathy the air was sucked out of L's lungs. Wide eyes wavering between Light's oddly puckered lips and marshmallow clouds swirling in the sky, L nibbled on the pad of his thumb in agitation, consuming only the credence of both his and Light's feelings.

Honesty had a bad aftertaste.

"We're repeating ourselves," L observed, clinging to the mechanics of the situation, to the surface of things worn smoother every moment; of course, this didn't escape Light's notice.

"Well, we have an eternity to repeat ourselves, don't we!?" Light blazed, demonic in appearance with the way he had pushed his bangs up in a spiky array to reveal two smoldering embers of cried out red-eye. "Of all the people, of all the places, I had to end up _here_ with _you._"

A bit blue, "Oh?"

"That's exactly what I mean! You're inhuman, a cold, calculating machine who… who _laughed_ at me when I told you how I died." The sentence was punctuated with a snarling half-sound life wouldn't have allowed Light, but then he hung his head and combed his fingers through his bangs until they were perfectly arranged, neurosis defined.

Stillness and silence reigned for a long time after that, neither comfortable nor uncomfortable nor even contemplative in nature. Perhaps it could best be described as the passage of time which only comes with timelessness; whether that made it more precious or wretched was introspective, and L had never been one to consider such matters, least of all now, below a sky steadily graying.

If the universe were having an unspoken contest of endurance, L lost when he took a tentative step forward. The clouds didn't burst and nor did Light stir. The raspy evenness of Light's breathing, like a sleeping dragon, beckoned L to his side for better or for worse to stare out at the swampy Tokyo skyline. Everything seemed dull and distant from this height, vacated despite the city glitter and glow; even the clouds were comatose.

"This is the day I died," L said softly. "Seven degrees Celsius, approximately. The rain sounds like… tiny bells on the surface of the rooftop… one-hundred-and-eight sins being cleansed. I am… sad… especially when I… when you…"

Softer still, "But I'm happy, too."

Crouching down, L tucked a strand of hair behind Light's ear, the movement jerky with nervousness and inexperience and his whisper even more so, a shuddering breath above all, "The truth is…"

* * *

**A/N:** I'm alive. I'm working on the next chapter. It'll probably be the last, depending on how the characters want to interact and where my mind takes me... but is it even possible to cram an eternity into one chapter? Light and L better get busy, if you know what I mean. XD

Additional info…

"In Japan, at the end of the year, a bell is chimed 108 times to finish the old year and welcome the new one. Each ring represents one of 108 earthly temptations a person must overcome to achieve nirvana." – Wikipedia. That's why there were 108 chapters to the Death Note manga, et cetera et cetera…


End file.
